Singapore's "Lianhe Zaobao" website recently reported that according to reports and information received by the US federal government, in the first half of this year alone, the ransom paid for the malware attack was as much as 590 million US dollars.
The U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crime Enforcement Network released a message saying: "If the current trend continues, the amount of ransom paid in 2021 is bound to exceed the figures of the past 10 years combined." ”
Figures previously released by the U.S. Treasury Department show that the number of ransoms paid by financial institutions that were extorted in the first half of this year was 42% higher than the total ransom paid by financial institutions in the whole of 2020. There are strong indications that the indeed amount is far beyond this amount, possibly reaching billions of dollars.
Often, hackers use malware to hack into the computer systems of commercial companies and financial institutions, paralyze entire systems, and then extort ransoms from those companies and institutions before unlocking them. In most cases, unscrupulous people demand the use of online currency to pay the ransom, making it difficult for law enforcement to trace.
So far this year, such serious attacks have occurred in the United States one after another, pipeline pipeline companies, meat processing companies, software companies have been recruited, and some companies have really solved the problem by paying ransom.
The U.S. Treasury Department noted that investigators found more than 150 suspicious online wallets, and after analysis, revealed about $5.2 billion in transactions that could be related to ransoms.
Investigators say the sharp rise in the number of ransom payments is not known to reflect the growing severity of such crimes or the increased awareness of such crimes in all sectors of society and their willingness to report them to the authorities. In its report just published, the Ministry of Finance did not name any victims or injured institutions.
Source: Reference News Network